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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As someone who has been toying with the idea of shifting high-IQ DD from a private to BASIS in 5th .... this is not welcome news.

Well, the part about the students self-selecting out of BASIS when they find it's not to their liking -- that's fine.   The news that kids with significant learning disabilities did not sign up in the first place to get their ass kicked academically, that makes complete sense.

But the part about the Board being shocked, shocked that a lot of former DCPS kids are crying Uncle! is bad.  I fear a watering down of the rigor is certainly around the corner.  Shoot.

[/quote]

BASIS expected a high attrition rate - this isn't like any other charter school.  I encourage your daughter to start in fifth - that is the best grade to start in.   They are not going to water down the curriculum for anyone who starts in fifth or sixth (there was a wait list this year after lottery season for sixth) because that would ruin their reputation, which is for a European style rigorous education, with high stakes testing, including objective measures like the O levels in 8th grade (which do not count towards their grades), and numerous APs.

We know one family who left because the kid just did not want to do the amount of work.  And it is hard work and you are accountable in several subjects with tests every week and others give surprise or announced quizzes.  That way they can find the kids who are suffering academically and try to help them. But I really think to get over testing anxiety and high stakes tests is best done in middle/high school not  in college, and is a great gift.  They teach study skills as well.  Sometimes part of their homework is making flash cards.

This is BASIS's first exposure to an inner city environment outside of Arizona.  It is in fact their first school outside of Arizona, and the founders rented an apartment here for the year (the original founders, the Blocks), so that they could help out.  I do not believe they were prepared for the variety of educational and social levels that we have here.  And  many of the unprepared kids made a serious mistake by not taking advantage of the remedial programs like summer school.

I heard one teacher lamenting "what do these kids think, that we don't mean it when we tell them that if they don't shape up academically, we will expel them?"  I think that is what those kids, used to years of social promotion, actually thought.  After 3 failing quarters you cannot possibly pass, and BASIS has the right to ask anyone who is failing to leave if they are not willing to go to summer school.  If you go to summer school and pass your comps, you get to advance.  If you fail, you have the right to repeat the grade or leave the school.  I see no shame in someone who really wants an education repeating fifth.

Their entire system is based on the fact that 5th grade is not too late for everyone to succeed.  And they try really hard.  But while they have accepted that the 7th and 8th graders will have a watered down curriculum (just because many of them have still not had Algebra I  (which the highest level fifth graders are now taking)), they maintain that the sixth and fifth will not.  Certainly as an incoming fifth grader your child will not, but try to get her into the LEAP program by getting her into algebra I and finding out what else it takes.

And although there are no uniforms, they make an effort (that has succeeded) in instilling a culture where education is prized.  Every grading period (there are five) class by class there is an awards ceremony for the 90s club, high honors, and distinguished honors.  Parents attend.  The only bad thing about this is that it, like the grading periods, are cumulative.  So if you are knocked out of the highest category by one bad precomp you can probably never get back in.  But my dc is friends with a multiracial, multicultural group who are all dedicated to succeeding academically.  That and disciplinary problems (and being a boy at the moment) are the only barriers to entry.  She has got a great group of girls here who help each other, and she is helping one of her friends with pre-algebra.

We know two special needs kids.  One of them is obvious to everyone because I think he has some form of high functioning autism.  But he is in the gifted program.  The other is under the radar but completely capable of handling the work with proper accommodations, which for the most part have been granted.  And there are at least 5 or 6 kids who need to take the elevator (their names are listed on the elevator door) for what I assume are physical disabilities.  But I would tend to agree that you have to be extremely gifted if you have a disability of any kind because it is kind of hard for normal well educated kids.

Please do not doubt BASIS.  They absolutely will not water down their curriculum for incoming fifth graders, and the education they offer is incredible.  My child has been exposed to physics, biology and chemistry and the teachers are all motivated and motivating.  She loves history and drama club and is making great strides. She is learning more in her grade than I did in that grade at NCS.

Fairly soon I would hope that BASiS will get a rep and will start attracting the kind of applicants that will do well as students - I think that has happened in Arizona.  But no matter how watered down the curriculum is for the upper grades now, it will not be for your child.  And the more children we have like you the better off we are.  We made the leap, took the risk, and are extremely happy that we did.  It is basically like a more rigorous private school.  And our child is thrilled - she was ready to go much farther than any other school even the privates would allow her to go now.

So I am not surprised by the attrition - I don't know what the rates are in AZ but they are certainly out of the norm for charters.  Attrition is good.  I expect a graduating class of 50 or so, all motivated and mostly smart, and a peer group equivalent to a private school but these kids will have much more education under their belts, most will have much less money, and their faces will be shades of white, brown, black and Asian.  Size will end up being private school like, everyone will know each others name.[/quote]

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